


A Temporary Fix

by hapakitsune



Category: Hockey RPF, Women's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2014 Winter Olympics, Bittersweet Ending, Concussions, F/M, NHL Lockout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 23:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5182979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On impulse, as she’s finishing up her squat reps, she asks him, “What are you doing tonight? Anything fun?”</p><p>“No, no plans,” Paul says. “Why?”</p><p>Amanda looks down at herself, then back up. “I had a few ideas.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Temporary Fix

**Author's Note:**

> I had this goofy idea way back of like "what if Paul Martin and Amanda Kessel met when he was bumming around Minnesota during the lockout?" and I've had this sitting around my drafts for what feels like a thousand years. And now it has an ending! Err. Sorry for the sadness.

He was in the gym when Amanda came in to work out in the mornings before practice, usually with a backwards baseball cap on and his face red and sweaty with exertion. She hadn’t recognized him at first with the hat and without the jersey, but then she had overheard someone say his name and she remembered yes, of course. Paul Martin had been a Gopher once, back in the Mesozoic era, and he was probably looking to fill his empty hours while the lockout dragged on. It wasn’t like Amanda wasn’t getting bored texts from Phil asking her what she’s up to when, usually, getting Phil to text is like pulling teeth.

She nods to him in the companionable way of all gym rats. He manages a jerk of his head before he sets down his weights. Amanda meets his eyes briefly, then looks away, tugging her hair up into a ponytail before choosing a bike to warm up on. 

They finish up around the same time, and Amanda is heading to change into her gear when he calls, “Hey.”

She turns and nods. “Hey.”

“You’re Phil’s sister, right?” he asks. “Amanda.”

“Yeah,” Amanda says, a little drier now. “That’s me.”

“Cool,” he says. “Nice to finally meet you. I heard you’ve been doing great things for the team.”

“Thanks,” Amanda says. “I’ve got to get to practice. See you around?”

Paul nods and waves. He towels the sweat out of his hair, and Amanda watches his shoulders shift beneath his t-shirt before she turns back to get her pads on. Her scalp itches, and she thinks he’s looking back; but she doesn’t turn to check. 

 

Paul’s in the gym a lot, and they make casual conversation when they meet, never about her brother after that first time. Paul asks her about the team and classes, asks about professors he had. She asks about his family, about growing up in Minnesota, about playing in the NHL. She tries to hide how hungry she is for information that isn’t filtered through Phil’s laconic downplaying of his experience, but sometimes she thinks Paul gets it from the way he talks about trying hard to prove himself and seeing things fall apart. 

Noora catches them talking once when she’s doing her stretches and nudges Amanda as they go into the dressing room, waggling her eyebrows. Amanda bursts into laughter and shoves at her, but it isn’t like she hasn’t thought about it. Of course she has. She has eyes. 

“You could do worse,” Noora says. She taps Amanda on the ass and grins before going to her stall. Amanda rolls her eyes when Megan asks what that was about, and says it’s nothing, because it isn’t.

She stays late in the gym that night, though, and Paul’s there too, working out like he seems to always be doing. On impulse, as she’s finishing up her squat reps, she asks him, “What are you doing tonight? Anything fun?”

“No, no plans,” Paul says. He’s sweating from his pull-ups, and he drops down from the bar, light onto his feet. Their voices sound strangely loud in the empty gym. “Why?”

Amanda looks down at herself, then back up. “I had a few ideas.”

They fuck in the showers, not with the water running because Amanda’s not interested in dying, but against the wall, her face pressed against the cold tiles. He lifts her hair away from her neck so he can kiss her, and his hand is splayed over her belly when he thrusts into her, palm over her naval. He knows what he’s doing, which is a nice change, and he gets her off while he’s still inside her before going to his knees and licking at her clit until she’s coming again, knees still weak from the first time. 

He doesn’t offer to wash her hair or anything weird like that. They shower in silence and go their separate ways. 

Three days later they do it again, only this time they have to use one of the bathrooms, because there are others in the gym. Then in her room—then his—and then it’s a habit, and it’s getting into November and Amanda—she knows that the lockout won’t last forever. 

“What are you studying?” he asks her one day late in fall, idly twisting the end of her hair around his finger as she squints at her textbook. 

“Econ,” she says. She looks back over her shoulder. He’s got a book open too, but it’s resting, pages down, on his stomach. “And you?”

“I’m not in school anymore,” he reminds her. He’s wearing his glasses too, which she thinks makes him look rather cute. Not that she’s told him that. “I’m reading about Canada in World War One.”

“Why?” she asks in bemusement. 

“Sid recommended it,” he says casually, like it’s part of Amanda’s life to have people casually drop Sidney Crosby into conversation. She may be related to Phil, but the accident of her gender means she will never have that life, and while she has accepted that, part of her will never stop being angry about it. “He’s really into war history.”

“Ah.” She turns back to frowning at her homework. His hand flattens against her shoulder blade. “What?”

“They think the lockout might end by Thanksgiving,” he says. 

“I know,” Amanda says. “Phil texts me.”

“I’m—” Paul sighs. “Never mind.”

She knows what he’s getting at, but that’s a conversation she doesn’t want to have, not now, not ever. Paul was—is—a whim. An accident, really, and she hates that she likes him as much as she does. It would have been much easier if they had just stuck to sex, if he had never taken her to the house he’s renting and let her choose movies from his collection to watch, if he had never come to a game and fucked her afterward, her hair still sweaty and cheeks still flushed. So few guys she’s dated have truly understood that part of her, and Paul does. He gets it, _really_ gets it. If Amanda isn’t careful, she could fall for someone like him. 

Things naturally tail off as December and finals draw close, and then she’s going home for the holidays where she spends a good portion of her time thinking of how to gently turn him down. It proves to be a moot point; by the time she goes back to school, the lockout has ended, and Paul is gone, only a few of his shirts in her closet and the faint whiff of his soap on her sweatshirt, and that fades after a week, like he had never been there.

 

Amanda doesn’t think much about the men’s Olympic team until she’s standing at the Big House and they’re announcing their names. She makes a face at Phil when his name is called, not that he can see it, and then she realizes—

“Oh shit,” she whispers. Gigi looks around at her and makes a questioning face. Amanda shakes her head and hopes—hopes Paul is smart enough not to mention he knows her. Phil isn’t always the most observant person around, but he’s always had a sixth sense when it comes to people she dates, and even if she’s beaten the overprotective brother schtick out of him, he can be—well. 

And then she realizes that she’s going to see Paul again, and her stomach twists. Not in fear, but something like eagerness. She’s surprised at herself; Paul had been little more than a distraction, something to keep herself from worrying about the Gophers. And, well—she did _like_ him. 

Part of her is hoping she can just avoid him; but the Olympic Village really is very small, and the American housing even smaller. And Paul has, apparently, brought everyone he’s ever met with him to Sochi. They’re impossible to miss, a huge gaggle of Minnesotans with accents that make Amanda homesick. Paul is the tallest of them, and the most blandly amused. He spots her when she draws to a stop and lifts his hand as if to wave. Amanda nods and hurries past. 

She isn’t alone with him until the last night of the Olympics, just as they’re about to march in the closing ceremonies. He’s wearing his Ralph Lauren sweater and looking faintly absurd, and his hand is still wrapped up from where he broke his finger. “I’m sorry,” she says when they run into each other. It’s the only thing she can think to say. 

“You played well,” he says, and they stare at each other until Phil comes up and says, “Mandy, you know Paul?” and Amanda turns, smiling blandly, and says yes, of course; Golden Gophers forever. 

After the closing ceremonies, he finds her again, and before he even asks, she’s nodding. “Yeah,” she says, “my room.” Megan owes her a few favors. 

Amanda rides him, holding his wrist down so he doesn’t hurt his hand more trying to reach for her, and when she comes, it’s with a dull sob. Her thighs shake as she sinks down on him, and he uses his spare hand to brush her hair away from her face. 

“Hey,” he says, voice only a little strained. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, and she lifts herself back up again, fucking down on him until he comes, wrist flexing under her hand. 

 

The headaches start coming on once she’s back in school. It takes her a week to realize what it is: Post-concussion syndrome. She’s had it before, but never like this, and she has to take a leave of absence from school when it starts to hurt to look at the board. She yells at Phil over the phone when he tries to talk to her about it, and she has to take a moment, slow herself down and remember that it isn’t his fault that he lucked out in so many ways. That Phil hasn’t always had it easy, either, and that she loves him. 

“I’m going to have to take next year off,” she confesses to him, her phone on speaker. She feels okay today; but she hadn’t slept well, and she doesn’t like having the phone to her ear anymore. It’s too loud. “I don’t think I can play.”

“Fuck,” Phil says. “I’m sorry, Mandy.” There’s a pause before he says, tentatively, “Is there anything I can do?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Amanda says. “Not yet.”

 

She carries the secret inside of her for weeks: she can’t play next year. She knows it, even before it’s confirmed by the doctor. “If your symptoms go away, we can revisit the topic,” the team doctor tells her, but he doesn’t look optimistic. 

The girls are wonderful; of course they are. They all know what it is to have hockey as their whole life. They know—because it’s about to happen to most of them—what it’s like to be afraid of losing hockey completely. Noora strokes Amanda’s hair, and Megan rubs her feet, and everyone says, _get well soon. We hope you’ll be back_. 

But none of that helps when they’re gone and she’s left alone to dwell on what could have been. 

Paul returns to Minnesota after the Penguins get knocked out of the playoffs, which Amanda only finds out because he texts her when he’s in town. _Heard about your head_ , he adds at the end. _I’m sorry_. 

Amanda’s hand hovers over the keyboard before she types, _Come over. Same place_. 

Paul, when he arrives, looks disheveled and exhausted, and he only manages a faint smile when she answers the door. He’s wearing his glasses. “Hey,” he says.

“Come in.” She holds the door open and shuts it behind him. “Want anything to drink?” 

“Water’s fine.” He follows her into the kitchen and waits until she’s poured him a glass to ask, “Are you okay?”

“What do you think?” she asks, more cruelly than she intends. But she means it; she’s growing to hate that question. That and, _how are you doing?_ She isn’t broken. 

Paul actually considers the question. “I think,” he says slowly, “that the last person I saw dealing with this was Sid, and he was fucking miserable. He kept pushing for solutions, and between all that he was crawling from the bed to the bathroom to throw up. He would just lie in bed with the curtains drawn.” He fixes her with a look that has her shrinking into herself slightly from how assessing it is. “I know that you’re stubborn and angrier than you let on, and you keep everything in. So don’t keep it in.”

Amanda takes a breath, then lets it out slowly. “I fucking hate it,” she says in a low voice. “There’s nothing I can do about it, just like there’s nothing I could do about only having college hockey available to me, only this time it’s my fucking _brain_ that’s screwing me over.” She’s crying before she realizes it, and she’s so fucking embarrassed that she tries to curl away from him, only he doesn’t let her. Paul pulls her into his chest, cradling her head gently in his hand, and stands there, steady, as she dashes herself to pieces against him. 

 

Paul stays the night; it’s the first time they’ve ever done that. He makes her breakfast before he leaves, and they kiss in the doorway just before he gets in his car. Neither of them say it, but Amanda knows this is the last time they’ll do _this_. 

But maybe one day, when things are different—when Amanda is settled and happy, maybe playing hockey, and when Paul isn’t at risk for trades or moving around—maybe they could try something different. It’s better, she thinks as he drives away, to leave it at this. Not in love yet; but the chance still remains. There’s a beauty in that possibility and the opportunity for choices. There’s hope.


End file.
